WilCulture

In 1964, the American public was introduced to Jonny Quest, which was a smart, sometimes funny and violent (for its time) prime-time cartoon that appeared on the ABC television network. Jonny Quest featured the adventures of the Quest family as they traveled around the world solving mysteries and fighting international villains. Forty years later, in 2004, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim premiered The Venture Bros., an animated comedy series heavily influenced by Jonny Quest and other cartoons produced its creators, Hanna-Barbera. The Venture Bros. also follows the adventures of the family and friends of the title characters, as they travel around the world, solving mysteries and fighting international villains. As the times have changed, so have the styles of these two shows.

Parallels can be drawn between the characters of both shows. While some characters are homologous, others can be considered composites of characters, while still others are entirely unique. The Quest family consists of Jonny Quest an 11-year old boy with a penchant for getting into trouble; his father, Dr. Benton Quest, a scientist who is frequently called on to save the world; Race Bannon, the Quest family’s bodyguard and tutor; and finally, Hadji, a Calcutta-born orphan who was adopted by Dr. Quest. The Venture Family is made up of Hank and Dean Venture, teenaged fraternal twins; their father Dr. Thaddeus S. Venture, a not-so-brilliant scientist who lives in his fathers shadow and has a “diet” pill addiction; and lastly, Brock Samson, the Venture Family bodyguard with a license to kill. Dean and Hank constantly find their lives in peril because of their father’s enemies, as do Jonny and Hadji. Both sets of characters have been kidnapped on more than one occasion. Dr. Quest is a brilliant scientist and takes his work very seriously. As a father, Dr Quest may be considered somewhat negligent, consistently leaving his sons unsupervised while he conducts experiments. This frequently leave the boys plenty of free time to get into dangerous situations, such as being kidnapped by Dr. Zin, their father’s archenemy. Dr. Venture has little interest in his sons’ lives, unless they are needed as organ donors. He took a kidney from each twin after losing both of his while on a drunken bender in Mexico. His sons were also kidnapped by his archenemy, the Monarch. Unlike Dr. Quest, Dr. Venture has little interest in science, and relies heavily on his own deceased father’s inventions for his livelihood, usually taking credit for them himself. Race Bannon and Brock Samson are both hyper-masculine bodyguards, skilled in hand to hand combat, dedicated to the well-being of the people they are in charge of protecting, and are considered to be part of their families, often showing more interest in the children’s welfare than their own fathers do.

From a cultural perspective, both series related to real-world issues and were influenced by contemporary pop culture. Jonny Quest featured settings and villains inspired by the Cold War and James Bond. Villains were nearly always depicted as foreigners, usually Asians or Eastern Europeans. Being a comedy, The Venture Bros. makes silly references to many other cartoons, comic books, movies, and and other media popular with its audience. These range from the series parodying of Jonny Quest to quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird. Both series are set in the time that they were produced, however Dr. Venture’s dependence on his father’s success leads to him living in the 1960’s era compound he inherited. Many viewers humorously find the relationship between Dr. Quest and Race Bannon to have an implied homoerotic undercurrent. This is also the case with the relationship between Dr. Venture and Brock Samson, although when a hospital worker told Brock that he would be allowed to visit Dr. Venture since they were “together”, Brock made it clear that he was only his bodyguard. Jonny Quest was the first animated series to feature realistic violence and death. This led to the show being taken off the air when it went into syndication on Saturday mornings in 1967. The Venture Bros., while equally violent, has suffered no controversy, due in large part to the fact that it was aired late at night and was aimed at adults, many of whom were desensitized to such violence thanks to the cartoon images they saw in their youth, most notably those in Jonny Quest.

As different as these two shows are, the appeal they hold for cartoon fans is universal. The combination of action, comedy, and international intrigue is still as interesting to children and adults today as it was decades ago.